


Just Beyond This

by daisydiversions



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Tragedy, Wakes & Funerals, rain scene, there is no excuse for this much sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-29
Updated: 2009-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-10 02:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisydiversions/pseuds/daisydiversions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someday, the only memory of King Uther with the people will be that he fathered the Great King Arthur. But Merlin will remember what he really was and Arthur will be unable to forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Beyond This

The night Uther died, Gaius quietly locked himself in his rooms and administered hemlock to his tea.

When he left the King’s chambers for the last time, Merlin was occupied with staring, unmoving at Arthur’s chalk white face, being just as useless a servant as Arthur always claimed he was, and Gaius gripped Merlin’s shoulder and wheezed into his ear. “I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t save any of them.”

It was a plea for absolution as much as a warning, but Merlin was for Arthur alone that night and heard neither.

“You did all you could, Gaius,” Merlin’s voice grated out, as if he had cried out all the tears Arthur was holding back for him. “All any of us can do.”

Later, choking on his own sobs and clawing mindlessly at Gaius’ deathbed, knowing that the same applied to himself gave Merlin no solace.

Instead, he pulled the sheet over the firm set in Gaius’ mouth and went to Arthur.

***

It was raining by the time Merlin found him. 

Someone had let him at a shovel and his back was bowed and taunt beneath his soaked tunic, and Merlin realized with a start that the hole he was viciously scrapping out of the earth was to be his father’s grave. 

In this, Merlin knew, Arthur wouldn’t be helped. 

He curled on the ground, watching Arthur work, the rhythmic cycle of the shovel piecing the earth, Arthur’s foot prying it free, and the soft thump as the newest clump joined the growing pile, was soothing in a way. Uther would rest here, and beneath the warm soil his son would spread over him, his faults would be put away and the people would one day only remember King Uther as the father of the great King Arthur. 

Merlin would remember though, and Arthur, he knew, wouldn’t be able to forget. 

The winds started up and the weather began working itself up into a proper squall. Merlin should have pulled Arthur away, made him come in from the cold and wet, but he didn’t.

He thought of Gaius’ cold, dead hands, Uther’s last ragged breath, and the way his heart had drained out of his body when Hunith had succumb to Nimueh’s plague anyway. They were both of them orphans now in every sense, and Merlin clung to Arthur’s forearms before he realized that he’s gotten up and felt the hair that was plastered to Arthur’s skull against Merlin’s lips and tried to breathe once more.

There was not a soul in this world that knew him any longer, not one that knew his magic, save for Lancelot, who, though his heart told him differently, he could very well never see again. And Merlin knew irrevocably that he could not keep himself from Arthur any longer.

Not when they were all each other had. Not when Merlin couldn’t imagine a tomorrow with Arthur not knowing.

Merlin breathed _’magic’_ against Arthur’s lips, slick from rain and salty from tears, and Arthur clutched the back of Merlin’s tunic rough and solid, and answered _’I know.’_

It was an instant of everything, grief and hope and Arthur, and Merlin had to close his eyes against it and believe that the rains would stop, the sun would rise, and he would make both come to pass from the tips of his fingers if Arthur willed him to.


End file.
